Windows XP in a Nutshell

Name

System Configuration Utility — \windows\pchealth\helpctr\binaries\msconfig.exe

Synopsis

Selectively enable or disable several startup options for diagnostic/troubleshooting purposes.

To Open

Command Prompt → msconfig

Description

The System Configuration Utility allows you to selectively enable or disable various settings that affect system startup (see Figure 4-89). For the most part, this tool was designed for an earlier version of Windows and therefore isn’t too useful in Windows XP. However, it does provide a few options not available elsewhere:

Figure 4-89. The System Configuration Utility lets you stop certain programs from loading automatically when Windows starts

General tab → Expand File

Provides a graphical interface to the File Expansion Utility (expand.exe), discussed earlier in this chapter.

SYSTEM.INI and WIN.INI tabs

These two tabs let you turn on or off any settings in either the system.ini or win.ini files, respectively. Note that these files aren’t actually used by Windows XP and are only kept around to support old Windows applications.

BOOT.INI tab

Displays the contents of the boot.ini file, used to display the startup menu in a multiple-boot environment, as well as several options that affect the boot menu. For example, if there is more than one operating system installed on your computer, you can use the Set as Default button to choose the default OS and the ...